Tuesday, March 27, 2007

Firstly on March 3rd was a spectacular Lunar Eclipse. The moon rose at around 6:30 PM Local time but due to the haze close to the horizon wasnt seen untill some 20 minutes later. The reason was that at moonrise the moon was in total eclipse and was dark ruddy brown in colour. At the meeting (22 March see below) there followed a discussion on how the disk became brighter at the point closest to the horizon and not as intuatively expected from the top down

On March 22nd to Meeting At Pedro Castle attacted a good crowd (20+?) all evening inspite of poor cloudy conditions at the start of the session

Observing started with the Moon and Venus, this time trying to pick out the phase of the planet which was possible using a dark blue filter. A bright meteor was spotted at around 7:30 PM heading South West and below the moon. It may have been a Leonid

As the cloud cover lifted the Orion Nebula (M42) and the M41 Globular Cluster were observed

Richards satellite predictions came up trumps when we saw a Mag -3 flash from an Iridium Satellite (Iridium 53). The flash laster for several seconds.

Saturn finally became visible, Using the Societies 8 inch scope as well as Saturns rings, several faint bands were seen on the planets disk as well

A good evening including a fine musical rendition of "Come Take a Trip On My Airship" by Charles Lindbergh Eden